


Asymptotes

by squire



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate universe - reunion, Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock/John (unrequited)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2684690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Greek ἀσύμπτωτος (asumptōtos) which means "not falling together"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asymptotes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwissMiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwissMiss/gifts).



> Author’s Note: I blame SwissMiss (SwissMarg on LiveJournal) for this. As we’ve been discussing the possible ‘devastating’ scenarios for the next season of Sherlock, she stated that the one thing the writers wouldn’t do would be ‘irrevocably killing John’. And my plotbunny scratched her head and said: Wait a minute....
> 
> My love and thanks to Ariane DeVere who, suspecting nothing, agreed to beta this, to summarise it later with a line marvellously telling in its succinctness: "Go fuck with everyone else’s minds, not mine!"

 

“I don’t know for how much longer I can do this, Mr. Holmes.”

“‘Mycroft’. We _have_ been over this.”

The answering huff is a token disrespect to the silence-infused walls of Mycroft’s private quarters at the Diogenes Club. Mycroft disdains it away with a lift of one eyebrow.

“He doesn’t need me.”

“He needs this.”

The man rises to leave, all clenched fists and precise ninety degree turns, and as he walks away an almost imperceptible limp, consciously pushed down but easily discernible with a trained eye, creeps into his broad gait. Mycroft watches him go and marvels at the inimitable complexity of John Watson.

He allows himself a deep sigh once he’s alone.

//

When Sherlock first flips open the folder Mycroft has kept on his friend during his two years of absence he’s turned speechless for a whole twelve seconds. Mycroft would count it as a personal victory were it not for the frightening delicacy of that particular moment.

“He looks...” His younger brother swallows.

“Ancient, with that beard, quite true. But it does keep the worst of the scarring hidden.”

The medical report is the next sheet in the file. Terse lines about multiple skin grafts, about the speech impediment caused by the damage to the facial nerves, are swept over and absorbed with eyes so sharp that Mycroft can see the words burning themselves into Sherlock’s retinas.

The colour of John’s eyes is the only thing that remains the same, as far as Mycroft can tell.

“Mycroft, you had _one_ job–”

“Contrary to your favourite fantasy, little brother, I do not control London traffic.” Gentleness is something with which Mycroft has to be careful and spare. “It was an accident. And John has recovered rather well, given the circumstances.”

Next report and the next, background checks of people involved in the car crash. Nothing suggesting foul play, nothing indicating someone’s masterminded involvement. Just an accident. Nothing Sherlock could have prevented. Nothing he could blame himself for.

The next couple of pages are surveillance reports on the ICU nurse John started dating while he was still a walking singed-haired ball of gauze.Apparently, the pull of his personality was irresistible even through the bandages.

A picture from the wedding. John is smiling in the photograph. Sherlock frowns at the smile – crooked, doesn’t reach the eyes due to the nerve damage – as if he’s trying to match it against the John-smiles stored in his memory. He’ll fail, Mycroft knows. Sherlock never saw this particular smile directed at him.

Well, he never saw John getting married either, did he?

//

It turns out that John’s infamous punch didn’t wilt during those two years that Sherlock wasn’t on the receiving end of it.

Mary, the wife, offers Sherlock an ice pack, demonstrates her marital loyalty by ignoring Mycroft, and goes back to sitting under the window in their cosy little flat in Chelsea. John shouts and stomps around the room and eventually grudgingly acknowledges the command of reason (Mycroft) and the plea of sentiment (Sherlock) and forgives his friend. Through all that, Sherlock looks exactly like his five year old self when he found a book in Cyrillic and realised there were things he couldn’t read.

“John, may I ask – will you come to Baker Street with me?”

“I swear, Sherlock, now you’re _really–_ ”

“Not _move_ ,” Sherlock adds quickly. “But I have yet to break the news to Mrs. Hudson and I’m afraid of saucepans.”

John laughs another letter to the alphabet Sherlock has to learn anew.

They set out, John with Mary’s blessing, Sherlock in awe and Mycroft as the silent minor Government official that he is, and for once his little brother doesn’t drop scathing remarks about third wheels during the ride. Getting beaten bloody in an underground terrorist cell couldn’t silence Sherlock; the threat of entering 221B for the first time in two years without John at his side keeps that sharp tongue in check.

Mrs. Hudson screams herself hoarse and then goes on sitting at her kitchen table and weeping into Sherlock’s coat as he stands beside her, patting her shoulder. Eventually John offers to make tea for everyone. She lifts her face to glance at him and weeps harder.

//

It takes exactly one case – the very first after his return – for Sherlock to realise that a married man living elsewhere is not the ideal partner for a crime-solving business.

But John accompanies him on the second, a boring embezzlement case that Sherlock has solved five minutes after he entered the client’s office, and then he drops by at 221B to sit in his old chair and be the perfect substitute for the once-again confiscated skull while Sherlock talks aloud to himself while working through the missing person case evidence pinned to the wall. Then John’s busy doing some unfathomable married things while Sherlock misses his gun in an ambush but he manages to get out of it on his own, eventually. He tries to barge into the Chelsea flat and demand that John patch him up but John, thoroughly unimpressed (and seconded by Mary), calls an ambulance for him and that’s it.

Sherlock aches for his presence so much that when John is there, the joy and benediction of it obliterates the discomfort of having to reshape his expectations to fit into a new mould. In time, Sherlock ceases doing double-takes every time he looks at his friend. In time, John’s voice in Sherlock’s head takes on the slightly lower-pitched, burred tone of post-accident John.

Two more cases when John declines to join him, then one he comes to, then four he misses out on. Sherlock begins to see a pattern.

//

“You’re advancing the process too quickly. Sherlock needs time to be eased into the idea, slowly, subtly.”

“Look, and what about me? This business keeps on stalling. I understand, PTSD and all that, but surely he gets the concept that people move on and friends just... fall out of touch.”

“People aren’t sticking plasters.” Mycroft keeps his voice even. “The pain of separation wouldn’t be lessened if it happened abruptly. On the contrary, if Sherlock had come home and realised that his friend was no longer–”

“Do _you_ remember that said _friend_ had to go through exactly that?!” The bitterness in those words is real. Mycroft hangs his head low, rubs his temples.

“I worry about him,” he confesses.

“Constantly. I know.”

“Then you will carry on as agreed?”

“This is the last thing you’re ever asking of me.”

//

New jacket, new belt, and the shine of new prospects around those eyes that Sherlock can no longer tell apart from the blurred images he remembers from two years ago.

“You’ve been offered a job. A better one than you currently hold.”

“Yeah. Mary’s actually ecstatic about it. It turns out she has some distant relatives in Edinburgh and they could–”

Sherlock drops the eyeball into his cup of tea. “Edinburgh?”

“Yup.  A department head at the Royal–”

“Edinburgh! John, that’s – you can’t assist me from Edinburgh.”

John scratches his head. “Well, I can’t, but we can always Skype,” he offers pleasantly. Sherlock’s eyes narrow. He heard that tone before, once... yes. (“I’ll call you,” Victor said. He never did.)

Sherlock stirs his tea with a spoon and takes an absentminded sip.

“The job starts on the first of June,” John says, eyeing the cup with a worried frown.

No answer. As if a mere two months were _worthy_ of an answer.

“Okay.” John hesitates. “I’ll see myself out then.”

There’s more compassion in that tea-soaked eyeball staring at Sherlock’s anguish from its cup than there is in the living eyes of his best friend.

“The John Watson I know would never want to live elsewhere than in London,” Sherlock says quietly.

John half-turns in the doorway and steadies himself with a hand on the door frame. “I’m not...”

Sherlock waits. John shakes his head and leaves.

That evening Sherlock succumbs to a strange whim and searches through the obituaries for the past two years. There is no mention about the death of one John Watson.

But then, Mycroft could have had the obituary suppressed, he thinks to himself.

//

Five weeks to go beforeJohn’s departure and two cases where he comes with Sherlock within the span of three days.  

“Getting my fill of being the side-kick, I guess,” John remarks good-naturedly.

“Mary doesn’t object?” She always objects.

“She’s a bit busy organising the move right now...”

“John.”

 _Don’t, Sherlock,_ says an almost forgotten voice in his head. _That’s not kind._

 “Yeah?”

“She’s having an affair. A long-term one. With a man she actually cares for. She doesn’t love you–”

For a very long while the silence is worse than shouting.

“And from what, _genius_ , did you deduce that? The creases on my shirt? The wear of my shoes? You know what? Don’t. Don’t tell me. Just...”

“John, I’m just trying–”

“You’re trying to make me be glad that I’m leaving you. Well done on that, _mate_.”

//

“This has to end, and quickly. He has already deduced about my ‘marriage’.”

Mycroft pretends he’s not disgusted by the air quotes.

“That was rather unfortunate, wasn’t it?”

//

Four weeks. As a peace offering, John agrees to write up one of Sherlock’s latest cases for the blog. It feels like a parting gift.

He still makes the same spelling mistakes.

Afterwards Sherlock spends the better part of the night staring at the keyboard of his laptop that John had borrowed for the evening task and berates himself that in those eighteen months they lived together he never once thought of collecting a proper set of John’s fingerprints.

Searching the flat is of no use. It was squeaky clean when they entered it back in November with sobbing Mrs. Hudson in tow. She’d been trying to get new tenants, she said.

//

Nineteen days. Sherlock needs to see Molly about an autopsy and he drags John with him.

“You don’t go to visit Molly much these days, do you?”

“Not really, no.” John agrees easily, jovially. “Never did in the first place. She only ever had eyes for you, and after that jumping stunt of yours she rather avoided me.”

When Sherlock thinks about it, Molly has rather avoided him too ever since he came back from the dead.

The atmosphere in the Bart’s mortuary is oddly familiar, almost a step back into the old days – John, pointedly useless, hovering near the door, Molly wearing extra make-up around her eyes, rather jumpy and intimidated into a corner.

“Coffee? I mean, would you two like coffee? I can bring some. ”

“Black, two sugars.” Then Sherlock remembers. “Thank you, Molly.”

She looks at John expectantly. He blinks at her. Re-crosses his arms. “My usual, thanks.”

She brings coffee. John accepts his cup with a pleasant smile and empties it without further comment.

When they are about to leave, the paper cup is still standing forgotten on the lab bench. In passing, Sherlock dips his little finger into the remnants of black liquid at the bottom. It tastes sweet.

//

Sherlock digs out John’s file and goes over the medical report again. There’s nothing wrong about it. The patient card from the burns centre is filled out in at least three different handwritings; Sherlock can make out the rotation of the nurses on the department. The dates align. John’s vitals, blood results: everything corresponding to what Sherlock once knew about his friend. It’s completely straightforward.

It’s perfect. As perfect as only a fake could be.

//

Five days before the first of June Mycroft enters his office and finds Sherlock waiting there for him. There’s a look in his eyes Mycroft last saw almost thirty years ago.

“Mycroft. Did you really apprehend that sniper?”

Mycroft makes his way to his chair, unhurried.

“The sniper trained on John. Who you should have had out of the way before you texted me that the Lazarus plan was ready. Did you really do it?”

“And what, exactly, are you expecting me to say? Yes, of course I did. But given your current paranoia, I think that even the footage from his happy days in prison wouldn’t convince you.”

Every piece of evidence can be manufactured. Sherlock has no other option than to rely on his brother’s word.

There’s that look in Sherlock’s eyes again, the one belonging to a child who could – and did – cry. A lifetime of lies stretches out between them.

_Tell me, Mike. Is he... is he... dead?_

_No, Sherlock. Don’t worry. Redbeard is ill, you know. The joints in his legs are hurting when he has to run on the pavement and on the hard floors. So we’ve sent him into a valley with lots of grass and no stairs so he can run and be happy._

“You wouldn’t lie to me, Mycroft, would you? In everything else, yes, but not in this. You would tell me if John was... if he was...”

It’s this helpless fragility that reminds Mycroft why is he doing this.

“Look at yourself, Sherlock. You can’t even say it aloud.”

“Don’t coddle me, Mycroft!”

That’s better. Rage is better than fear.

“Trust me for once, dear brother. John didn’t die while you were away. He has simply moved on. He has a wife, and a good life ahead, and he doesn’t regret severing his ties to the past. That happens even to the best of friends.”

Sherlock is still shaking his head when he mutters: “And how would _you_ know?”

//

The night before John leaves for Edinburgh Sherlock waits for Molly in her locker room and when she sees him she nearly jumps out of her skin.

“You’ve been crying again, Molly.”

“What do you want?”

“The truth.” He takes slow steps towards her at the same pace she’s backing into the wall. “The truth about this horrible scheme. About that stranger in John’s clothes and a hired actress to pose as his wife and –”

“Stop it.”

“You know, when Mycroft thought that the Woman had died, he spun me a tale about her entering a witness protection scheme because he thought I _cared_ about her! It’s the same pattern, always trying to protect me–”

“Stop it, you self-centred idiot! Everything is not always about you!”

Her lashes are wet again but it only makes the hardness in her eyes shine brighter.

“You want the truth? Well, here it is. John Watson is alive, and okay, and he doesn’t want to have anything in common with you, do you understand? Did you think he would wait for you, that he would never want to leave you? You should never have left _him_! John is perfectly okay and _he doesn’t want you_.”

He could always trust Molly.

“Is that how you felt?”

She pulls him into a hug and he lets her.

“You’ll get over him. I promise.”

//

“Why are you Skypeing me?”

_“Just to see that you’re all right. And to tell you that I’ve honoured your wish.”_

“Oh. How did he... did he really buy it?”

_“That you’re dead? I’d say that yes, he did.”_

“I haven’t noticed my obituary, Mycroft.”

_“We didn’t want to scare your family, did we? But trust me, he believes it. Even though it took Sherlock Holmes to fool Sherlock Holmes.”_

“Ah. Okay. I’d... I hope he’ll be okay. But it’s really for the best like this.”

_“I still doubt it but what can one do now?”_

“No, I mean, really. He jumps off a roof because someone points a rifle at me? What next? Would he shoot the person that would as much as threaten me? I’m his weakness, and people like Sherlock Holmes can’t afford to have one.”

_“I agree with you on that.”_

“So we’re fine?”

_“I’d say so. You do understand, Doctor Watson, that this is the last time you’re ever asking anything of me.”_

“Perfectly.”

John closes the screen of the laptop and looks around the hospital mess room, breathing in the oppressing heat under the tent roof. The chalky-dusty taste of the air is almost enough to suppress the sour tang of self-reproach on his tongue.

It’s really for the best.

John is sick and tired of having his life organised by the Holmes brothers.

He found out about Sherlock about a year after he buried him. A young homeless man came to the A&E with a gash in his forearm and high as a kite on toluene. The boy burst into a fit of gleeful giggles as soon as he saw the face of the doctor who was tending to his wretched arm. It didn’t take much to make him babble.

After that, John had had enough. He didn’t want to be there when Sherlock returned.

For a while, Sherlock had been the axis of John’s life, but the curve of that life was asymptotic from the start. Their crossing point was somewhere in the infinity, a mere mathematical construct. And there is always more than one axis on a graph.

The routine in the field hospital embraced him as if he never left. He can’t say he’s back in his element, though: he switched elements, that’s more like it. Thames waters and the earthy dirtof a city for the bullets-buzzing air and fiery sunshine of the desert. John is an amphibian; he can breathe Afghan fire just as well as he breathed the rains of London.

The heat dries up the wetness in the corners of his eyes.

It parches his skin.

Preserves his heart.  

**Author's Note:**

> So what do you think? Was it a doppelgänger? Was it the real John all the time? You pick.


End file.
